


There and Back Again - A Wizard’s Tale

by SouthernContinentSkies



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Book: The Vor Game, Canon-Typical Violence, Crossover, Draco Malfoy Needs a Hug, Gen, Gregor Vorbarra also needs a hug, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Jacksonians and their morals, Post-War Draco, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, but Barrayarans are all repressed as heck sooo, how about some shared experiences of mild to moderate peril as a substitute for affection
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-16
Updated: 2020-06-12
Packaged: 2020-06-29 18:47:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19836346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SouthernContinentSkies/pseuds/SouthernContinentSkies
Summary: Before Greg Bleakman can meet Miles in a Jacksonian Consortium jail, he runs into someone even more out of place than he is.





	1. A Wizard is Never Late

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Guy Allegre's Excellent Clock](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18483679) by [SouthernContinentSkies](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SouthernContinentSkies/pseuds/SouthernContinentSkies). 



> Being the first chapter of the first story (if I get off my authorial rear, there will be three) of the “prequels” to Guy Allegre’s Excellent Clock.
> 
> Diverges from Vorkosiverse canon where obvious (in the middle of The Vor Game); diverges from HP immediately following the Final Battle at Hogwarts, plus assorted background details before then. There are no LotR connections (sorry?), with the possible exception of continued wordplay.

The Jacksonian Consortium Station was not really what he had expected.

In hindsight, of course, this should have been obvious; space stations everywhere had a certain level of similarity to one another, due to the constrictions and necessities of supporting human life in the absence of spontaneously occurring air, heat, gravity, or funding. Whatever the exoticism available on the surface of Jackson’s Whole, recreating it in the equivalent of an interstellar monorail terminal was either uneconomical generally, or (more likely) confined to various dimly lit back rooms: more sumptuously appointed than the spartan bulkheads of the corridors, available only to well-vetted and well-funded clientele, and otherwise invisible to erstwhile penniless vagrants. Even when, in the odd case, the two were one and the same.

The absence of decadence, however, did not bother him nearly so much as the presence of bureaucracy. This, too, should have been obvious - record-keeping was generally a necessary prerequisite for getting paid - but it was most unfortunate. His initial visions of disappearing into the seedy galactic underbelly may have been replaced by the more practical aspiration of contacting the consulate without being profiled by galactic record-keeping, but both were apparently no more possible on this station than in the Beta Colony Visitor Welcoming Facility.

He frowned to himself. The group of station officials - security? law enforcement? customs or immigration control? he wished he could read their uniform patches at this distance - who were controlling the intersection around the corner were doing more than checking identification. They were also, he had noticed, detaining people - about one in four of those they accosted, with no particular pattern he could see. On another station, he might have risked it, but he had no idea what the Jacksonians, with their interesting philosophies of “crime” and “justice,” would even be checking for. Bribe money, possibly, in which case he was hosed. He’d had an emergency credit chit on him in Komarr (sewn into a seam of his trousers, part of ImpSec’s endless contingency planning), but between basic necessities like food and the freighter passage through Pol in the first place, it was long empty. 

As he peered around the corner again, hoping against reason for additional options, a hand slid up his shoulder. “Careful,” said a quiet, oddly accented voice in his ear. “This isn’t the sort of place you want to look lost in.”

Gregor froze, darting his eyes back over his shoulder, but the man behind him was standing too far around him to be seen at that angle. 

“Don’t bother denying it,” the man continued. “You’ve been standing there contemplating that checkpoint for far too long to be merely woolgathering. I’ve been watching what passes for law enforcement in this place for three days now - though not, mind you, in the same spot for ten minutes, like an idiot - and I can tell you from experience that their crime of choice is vagrancy. By which, of course, they mean ‘we don’t like your face and you can’t afford to buy us off.’ Charming system. Overly familiar, in fact, if refreshingly impersonal.”

The hand on Gregor’s shoulder disappeared, and he turned around to see his accoster for the first time.

To his surprise, the man was in fact a boy, probably about sixteen. If he really had kept out of sight of the Jacksonian authorities for three days on a space station, that was an accomplishment. Not only was an unaccompanied minor a relatively unusual sight, even in Jacksonian space, but the boy’s hair was an impossibly pale shade of white-blonde that, apart from its likely ability to reflect any hint of light at fifty meters, was not often achieved without either cosmetic or genetic interference. The boy’s similarly-hued brows and lashes suggested that his conspicuous coloring was at least his birthright, if not necessarily what a Barrayaran would call “natural.” Pale skin, pointed features, and a twitchy demeanor - poorly masked by a familiar sort of determined arrogance - completed the picture. He looked like he hadn’t seen the sun in weeks, though possibly he was just spaceborn.

“I’m not lost,” he said mildly. “I’m just not interested in interacting with security.”

“Well, that certainly makes two of us,” replied the boy, with mocking cheerfulness, “but it won’t happen if you stand around here peering at them. Need some help?”

Gregor raised an eyebrow. On the one hand, robbing tourists with this particular pickup line was one of the oldest tricks in the book. On the other, he didn’t actually have anything of value to be robbed of, given the, ah, impetuous nature of his departure. Still, it wouldn’t do to wander off in a spirit of naivety and get mugged. The debriefing with Simon was going to be excruciating enough as it was.

“Look, I’m not being altruistic here,” said the blonde, some of his veneer of confidence wearing off. “I’ve been watching their security patrols for three days because I frankly don’t have anything else to do. I don’t know how I got here, and in any case, I really can’t go home. I’m not after your money, or anything. I can get that myself, if you can point out a bank machine - which, incidentally, should be the first thing we do, if you’ll take me up on it. I’m guessing neither of us have the right papers for that lot, but if we can bribe them they won’t care.”

Gregor blinked at the sudden frankness. If this was still the straight line for a robbery, or a con, it was the strangest Gregor had ever heard of. “What _are_ you after, then?” he asked, with genuine curiosity.

The boy hesitated, looking down and away. He was nearly as tall as Gregor, but he didn’t look it in the moment. From this angle, Gregor could see the sweep of his eyelashes, highlighted by the harsh overhead light of the corridor, throwing shadows across his cheeks. They were longer than they had looked earlier, from straight on. 

“Take me with you,” the blonde said finally. “Wherever it is you’re going - I don’t care. But I can’t go home, and I can’t stay in a place like this - surrounded by machines, and you can’t even see the outside.”

Something about his phrasing seemed odd to Gregor, but he focused on the obvious for the moment. “I’m a complete stranger,” he said. “What are you going to do if I’m just going to another station, or if I turn out not to be trustworthy?”

“Cut you loose and start over,” said the boy, regaining some of his sangfroid with a small smirk. “I’m better at taking care of myself than I look. But I’m not too worried; it’s not just the security people I’ve been watching, after all.”

Gregor narrowed his eyes at this. The boy widened his, in a wordless assertion of innocence.

“Don’t get your knickers in a twist,” he said. “I’m hardly going to approach someone with this sort of sob story without some idea of his character. The first person I followed turned out to be some sort of procurement agent for one of these guard patrols. Procurement for _what_ I’m not sure, judging by those procured, but I wouldn’t like to find out. The things that go on in this place; it’s worse than Muggle London. The worst thing you’ve done is skulk badly in corners, and that sort of behavior I can hardly throw stones at, myself.”

Gregor actually thought he was quite good at skulking in corners, having had not only exceptional training but significant experience. Either he was out of practice, or the boy was better at this than his youth would have suggested. Perhaps his assistance would be useful, after all. 

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“Malfoy,” the boy replied, with an odd twist of his mouth. “Draco Malfoy. What’s yours?”

“Greg Bleakman,” Gregor said. He wondered what kind of a name “Draco Malfoy” was. It seemed too unique for an alias, though perhaps that was the point. Then again, he had very little room to talk. His own pseudonym was one detail of this misadventure he wasn’t planning on sharing at the end of it.

“Well, ‘Greg Bleakman,’” said Malfoy, “It seems we make a good pair. You know where you’re going, but you won’t get there by yourself, if that performance was any indication. And I can get practically anywhere, but I have no idea where to go.” The boy raised his invisibly blond eyebrows in invitation. “What do you say, Mr. Bleakman? Shall we help each other?”

Gregor considered it. He really ought to decline; even if he were arrested for vagrancy, surely he’d be able to get a message to the Barrayaran consulate from the holding facility, even on a Jacksonian station. And however unlikely it might be, inherent Barrayaran paranoia prevented him from dismissing the possibility that this Draco Malfoy was some sort of galactic security operative, and the whole encounter some sort of trap. On the other hand, he’d already trusted the freighter captain, the spaceport official, and the Polian sanitation engineer to the same degree, and if his own security forces hadn’t found him yet, he doubted anyone else’s could have either. Also, a galactic operative would almost certainly have a more mundane cover. Far more likely was the possibility that Malfoy was the scared teenager he appeared to be, and the primary danger he posed, if any, was either pickpocketing or, at worst, opportunistic informing. As Gregor’s own opportunism had prevented him from putting anything of value into his pockets before his ill-considered tumble off the balcony, he at last decided that the potential benefits of trusting his strange companion outweighed the risks.

Malfoy had been watching his inward deliberations, his affectation of archness fading progressively into flat exhaustion. “I don’t bite,” he said, with a fraction of his former bravura. “I realize you’ve got no particular reason to trust me, but I assure you I’ve got all manner of violence quite thoroughly out of my system for the foreseeable future. Except self-defence, I think,” he added, “but let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. I much prefer sneaking around any obstacles to the frontal approach.”

Gregor, thinking of the last time a scion of the Vor had gone gallivanting around the Nexus according to a decidedly frontal approach, could not help but approve. Still, Simon Illyan’s training demanded that he at least try to establish some fundamental parameters. 

“Look,” he said, “What, specifically, is your plan here? I’m not crawling through ductwork with you or anything. I’m willing to trust you, _provisionally,_ but there’s trust and then there’s idiocy.”

“No ductwork,” said Malfoy, looking appalled at the very idea. “And definitely no crawling. We’re just going to go down the less-traveled corridors, and try to time the patrols. They’re more or less regular. At a guess, I think they’re going for visitors rather than residents.”

“I am worried we’ll be more conspicuous together than separately,” said Gregor, still thinking. “A man on his own is nothing, but what are they going to think of me with a sixteen year old? We’re obviously not related.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Malfoy, managing to be both condescending and defensive. “First of all, I’m seventeen, thank you very much, which is actually of age in- where I’m from. And if anyone thinks anything of it at all, which I very much doubt, they’ll probably assume you’re a client.” 

“Ah,” said Gregor, in reflexive distaste. On reflection, he supposed he was less disappointed by the absence of traditional Jacksonian decadence than he had thought.

“Don’t worry.” Malfoy’s tone was deliberately light but otherwise unreadable. “I can tell you’re not interested in that. It’s one reason I approached you in the first place.”

Gregor narrowed his eyes. He should have wondered sooner why, exactly, a seventeen year old boy was wandering around on his own, but he was certainly wondering now.

“What are you doing on your own, in the first place?” he asked. He didn’t expect the truth, but, per both Simon’s lessons on intelligence and Aral’s on diplomacy, any answer would provide information.

“What are you?” the blonde countered. “You clearly don’t belong here any more than I do.”

Gregor said nothing, but cast a raised eyebrow over Malfoy’s clothes. His black suit was unfashionably anachronistic enough to have been scavenged cheap from a second-hand shop, but the fabric was clearly high quality, and it might even, allowing for recent weight loss, have at one point been tailored to fit Malfoy himself. Gregor, at least, had had the sense to exchange his demure but too-obviously expensive diplomatic finery for an unremarkable shirt and trousers, during the layover on the Pol-side station. Perhaps Malfoy, more vulnerable due to his age, hadn’t had the opportunity. Or perhaps he had, Gregor reflected, and this was his version of “unremarkable.” The severity of the all-black ensemble might be attractive to a troubled teenager, but it really did nothing for his coloring.

Malfoy flushed under the scrutiny. “Apologies for not looking ready for tea with the bloody Minister, thanks. It’s not as though I’ve been sleeping rough for three months, or anything. There’s only so much Tr- interim measures can do.”

“It’s not that,” said Gregor mildly, though it was. “It just looks like something out of at least the last century.”

Malfoy acquired a very peculiar look on his face. “Well,” he said, his voice sounding moderately strangled, “if we happen to pass by a suitably fashionable boutique, do point it out, won’t you? I’d hate to be giving any upstanding citizens this place may possess the idea that I were somehow _anachronistic._ ”

Gregor raised his eyebrows at the boy’s vehemence. “Well -”

“Right, yes,” the blonde interrupted, tossing his hair back as though to discard the previous exchange. “First things first - we get out of this corridor. We’ve been standing here far too long for any of the usual unsavory reasons, and anyway if we don’t move soon those guards will be leaving their post and heading this way. Come on.”

Without any more commentary, or even a backward glance at Gregor, the boy turned and headed away from the intersection checkpoint and towards the entrance to a small side corridor, scoping around the corners with commendably subtle surreptitiousness as he did so. His hair did indeed catch all the available light, however. 

Shaking his head at this entire turn of events, Gregor hurried to follow him. At least, he thought, this whole unfortunate incident could not possibly get any more bizarre.


	2. An Unexpected (Third) Party

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A familiar face appears. Malfoy gets more mysterious. Jacksonian law is insane.

Malfoy’s first injunction, after they reached a less-patrolled segment of the station, was that they must acquire currency. Gregor’s faith in the boy’s usefulness as a companion rose, slightly.

“Like I said, I’ve been watching these guards,” Malfoy said, “and all of them take bribes. As does everyone else here, apparently. I think that’s one thing they’re using to decide who to arrest, actually, but even if they really are checking papers, a bribe should do in a pinch. So that’s the first thing I need you for, Bleakman; which of these flashing wall sections is a bank counter?”

After some exploration, Gregor directed them to a corridor off the main shopway. Designed for discretion, like so many of the secondary passageways in the station, the corridor contained an interface for private encrypted message drops, an otherwise anonymous automated storefront bearing the insignia of House Fell, and a very plain, unlabeled bank console.

Malfoy bent over the console interface, poking at it with one hand while the other fingered the hem of his sleeve. “Merlin’s tits, I hate these machines,” he muttered, apparently to himself. “Can’t even Confund them properly...” He trailed off into a look of irritated concentration. A moment later, the console produced a series of small but increasingly distressed whirring noises, and finally a credit chit, which he held out to Gregor. “Does this look right? All these little plastic rectangles look the same to me.”

Gregor took the chit and examined it, raising his eyebrows. It was a bearer chit, as expected from a deliberately anonymous exchange, with the discreet imprint of the Iron Bank of Betelgeuse. “It looks legitimate,” he said dubiously, “but I’m not sure it looks like it belongs to us, dressed as we are. The last thing we need is to be arrested for stealing. How much did you put on it?”

“I asked it for 20,000 dollars, just to be sure - whatever that’s worth. Pounds not being an option. I’m not sure how well it worked, mind you. It could be less. Once in London I tried for 9000 pounds and it only gave me 1337 for some reason. Bloody Muggle machines.”

Gregor’s dubiousness intensified. Defrauding a bank console with one’s bare hands was a considerable achievement, he supposed, whatever the resulting amount. But he was starting to wonder whether the boy’s background was less in the way of “mysterious” and more in the way of “ignorant.” Betan dollars were a common medium of exchange among those whose local currencies were more obscure or unstable - having never heard of “pounds,” Gregor guessed they qualified - but who in the Nexus had no idea of their relative value? Even Earth wasn’t that much of a backwater, especially in a major spaceport city.

“Long way from London, here,” he said, as casually as possible.

Malfoy shot him a disdainful look. “I wouldn’t know,” he said pointedly. “Went by like the blink of an eye, from my point of view.”

“Or seven blinks, I suppose,” said Gregor, alluding to the number of jumps between Earth and the Hub. He was rewarded with a look of complete blankness. He wasn’t sure whether Malfoy was that cautious, or perhaps just that thick.

Neither really fit, however. The boy’s face and reactions were twitchy and alert in a way that suggested caution unto paranoia, but he was still young and inexperienced enough that masking his responses required effort, and time. That look had been genuine ignorance, not some calculated mask. Beyond that, the boy’s remarks had sketched out several other holes in his knowledge base that Gregor couldn’t begin to square with his presence on a Jacksonian space station. Most obviously, how did anyone with access to galactic transit not know how to locate a bank console? If Malfoy weren’t secretly an idiot, he was clearly very sheltered. Perhaps he was an escaped clone? That would explain both the aptitude and its bizarre pairing with the ignorance.

“Malfoy,” he began, hoping to investigate this angle. “Where exactly are you from?”

“Wiltshire,” Malfoy said, with the false brightness of someone perfectly aware his answer had provided no actual information. “And you?”

“Ah - Aslund,” Gregor replied, judiciously.

“Aslund. Of course. So glad we’re getting to know one another.” Malfoy was clearly not convinced. “Well, Mr. Greg Aslund Bleakman, now that we’re properly supplied - where are we going?”

Gregor hesitated. It was an inevitable question, of course, but most anonymous Nexus travellers did not voluntarily interact with Barrayaran authorities. Still, without a map or knowledge of the station, the truth was the only useful response.

“The Barrayaran Consulate,” he said. “I, ah, have relatives there.”

“In the country itself, I suppose,” said Malfoy drily. “And not the consulate.”

“Of course,” said Gregor, poker-faced. 

“This seems a lot of subterfuge for a nice family visit,” Malfoy said. “Are you fleeing arrest, or something? Only it does make a difference to how completely we avoid the authorities on our way there.”

Gregor looked away, pondering how to answer this. He couldn’t possibly tell the truth, of course, but if Malfoy were going to be an effective guide, he did need to know some version of the basics. Then, too - it might be helpful for more personal reasons as well. Cordelia had always pushed the usefulness of talking things out, when you were ready. Gregor didn’t think he’d ever be ready to discuss any of this with anyone on Barrayar, especially the more personal parts, but his temporary anonymity afforded him some equally temporary freedom, at least in that regard. 

It might also help him sort out exactly how he felt about it all. He had stepped off the balcony in agonized confusion, guided by equal parts despair and a bizarre compulsion to stop making any choices, and simply roll the dice. His feet had mostly found the ground by the time the freighter had docked, but he was still running on a bit of the same fey spirit; unmoored, disconnected from other people, or from future consequences. It was an absolutely terrible idea to tell any part of his life story to a stranger on a Jacksonian station, let alone the parts that constituted Barrayaran state secrets. But perhaps he could twist it just enough to be both anonymous and cathartic. If he didn’t tell _someone_ , he felt that he would burst with it. Not with the secret - he kept enough of those - but with the _sensation_. He had been falling before he ever stepped off the balcony; it was a natural consequence of having the ground ripped out from under you. It was the most natural thing in the world to reach out for a hand, even when it was critically unwise.

“I’m running away from my father,” he said finally, in a rush of impetuousness. It wasn’t the forbidden literal truth, but it was true enough nonetheless.

At his answer, Malfoy’s arch mask fell all the way off his face in an instant. It was replaced by an almost aggressively blank expression. It didn’t hold a candle to the blankness of, say, Simon Illyan, but it was very impressive for a seventeen-year-old. And, in context, somewhat concerning.

“Oh,” Malfoy said. “Alright then.”

Gregor waited a moment, but the boy said nothing else. “Aren’t you going to ask why?”

“No,” said Malfoy, shortly. “Is he going to be sending anyone after you?”

“I… don’t think so,” said Gregor delicately. He was sure every ImpSec agent in the Hub was looking for him, but it wouldn’t matter if they could just get to the consulate in one piece. And anyway, he wanted to be found. Mostly.

“Right,” said Malfoy. “Good. Now, I know where the foreign visitors services are generally, but I wouldn’t have the first idea which one was for Barrayar, and I couldn’t even read half the signs. What would the guards outside look like? Hopefully they’re distinctive enough to remember.”

“Um,” said Gregor. “Very, ah, military? Green uniforms. Shiny black boots. Serious to the point of paranoid. As heavily armed as the station authorities will allow. Shiny service symbols and colored rank tabs on the collars.” He thought that over. “That probably about covers it.”

“Oh, _them?_ ” Malfoy looked skeptical. “Yeah, I remember those ones. Cheerful lot. Just who I wanted to be cozying up to right about now. Lovely.”

“You don’t have to come with me,” Gregor said, a bit defensively. It was an entirely reasonable characterization of Barrayaran guards, but still.

“No, no, it’s fine,” Malfoy said hurriedly. “I’m sure the civilians are friendlier. They’d have to be, anyway. Right, yes, I know where we’re going. It’s across some of the major corridors from here, but it’s not that far. Follow me!”

* * *

After a bit of a walk down the same secondary corrider, they came to a bend. Malfoy motioned them to stop short of it.

“Around this bend is a junction with one of the major cross-corridors,” he said. “And all the visitor-facing services, including your consulate, are on the other side. But it’s heavily patrolled by their security, so I want to wait til the top of the hour. They’re supposed to be at their check-in points then, which are at the more major cross-junctions, so we should be clear to stroll through. We’ll wait here til then; try to look casual in the meantime.”

They had encountered no one else in the corridor so far, and the top of the hour was only a few minutes away. Gregor leaned on the wall next to Malfoy and tried to look nonchalant. By Malfoy’s somewhat amused sideye, he wasn’t doing very well. 

“So, is Wiltshire close to London?” he asked, grasping for normalcy and coming up only with Diplomatic Small Talk, Lesson One. “Do you have relatives on Earth, then?”

“Only in a manner of speaking,” said Malfoy, a touch of bitterness creeping through. “They’re all dead. Well, mostly. I have another aunt somewhere, I think, but I’ve never spoken to her.”

“I’m sorry,” said Gregor, with genuine sympathy. 

Malfoy snorted. “Most of them deserved it.”

Gregor, still very conscious of his own newly complicated family feelings, did not remark on this. “Was it recent?” he asked instead. That might explain some of Malfoy’s situation, and his attitude.

“Mostly. My grandparents all died before I was born. As for everyone else... ” Malfoy paused, staring unseeing at the floor. “There was a war, of sorts.” 

His expression was closed, but not as blank as earlier. Too many emotions roiled vaguely beneath its surface to manage that. It reminded Gregor of someone else, he thought, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.

“We’ve had a few of those,” he said, in quiet solidarity. “‘Wars, of sorts.’ My mother died in one, actually, when I was six.”

Malfoy said nothing, but his expression opened just enough to show a flash of pain. Gregor caught the resemblance, finally, and bizarrely: Admiral Count Vorkosigan. They looked nothing alike, of course, but something in the well-concealed agony was very similar. But his Prime Minister was well into middle age, and had a long career and multiple military campaigns behind him. No seventeen-year-old should have that look. Gregor was no stranger to grief or melancholy, but in his own “war, of sorts,” he’d been too young to do anything but be carried around by adults. A teenager, of age in his own community, caught up in the same thing... 

“There’s always a general pardon, afterwards,” Gregor continued, hoping he was heading in the right direction. “For all the soldiers below a certain rank. They’re oathbound to follow their commanders, so it’s a bit much to hold them responsible for their superiors’ treason. And it would be hard to rebuild, either the city or the military, after thousands of executions.”

When Malfoy turned, at last, to look at him, the mix of grief and guilt in his eyes told Gregor he was right. “You get a pardon from the one you wronged,” said Malfoy. “It’s not yours I would need. And anyway, you don’t even know what happened.” But there was a tinge of hungry hope at the edges of his voice.

“You have it anyway,” said Gregor, seriously. He wasn’t sure what legal operation those words might have, under the circumstances, but he had already resolved not to let Malfoy fall on the wrong side of ImpSec at the end of this. If he really wanted a home on Barrayar, Gregor would do his considerable best to give him one.

Malfoy had come to the end of his tolerance for vulnerability, however, and retreated into snark. “Well, I’m glad to be travelling with someone who can issue pardons, Bleakman, that’ll be dead useful when they catch up to us for bank fraud. Now -” He craned a look at Gregor’s chrono. “- it’s the top of the hour. Time’s up; let’s go.”

* * *

They crossed the junction without incident. There were a number of people around, in the main corridor, but no security goons, and no one spared them a second glance.

On the other side, the secondary corridor continued for only a short way before hitting another junction.

“We should be able to get through this one without waiting,” said Malfoy. “If we hurry a bit. Come on.”

There was no bend before this junction, and at Malfoy’s urging they hurried straight into it without pausing - only to come up against the backs of a trio of enormous Jacksonian security officers. They hastily backed away, but the goons paid them no attention; they were busy confronting someone on their other side.

“You’ll have to make arrangements from Detention, sir,” one of them was saying.

“But I’ll miss my ship!” 

Gregor started. That almost sounded like…

Malfoy pulled his arm. “Come on,” he hissed, jerking his head in the direction of the opposite corridor.

Gregor hurried after him, but before they could make the corridor, one of the goons turned around.

“Hey, Jan,” he said, to the man next to him. “Isn’t that the kid Portis wanted for ‘vagrancy?’”

Malfoy blanched, clutching at the hem of his sleeve.

Gregor set his jaw. Malfoy’s oblique references to prostitution suddenly made a lot more sense. Unfortunately, he wasn’t sure exactly what he could do about it. Simon had made sure he was no slouch at hand-to-hand combat, if necessary, but any one of the Jacksonian goons had several inches and several dozen pounds on him, not to mention two companions.

As the goon moved forward, however, Gregor caught a glimpse of their previous target behind him, and a whole host of new problems drove that one almost out of his head. It _was_ Miles! What on earth was going on?

At the same moment, and in the same angle of opportunity, Miles also caught a glimpse of him - or so Gregor concluded from his expression, which turned briefly baffled before becoming positively white.

The first goon, oblivious to this byplay, was still advancing. “Might as well take both of them in, just in case,” he tossed over his shoulder to the others. “If they’ve been skulking around off the grid for a few days, there might be other warrants by now.”

“Sounds good to me ,” the one on his left replied. “I’ll just grab Mister Rotha here, and we can cross that off the list, too.”

Gregor caught a glimpse of Miles, behind them, looking wildly around for some viable solution, with an expression that suggested he was about to try an unviable one instead. Before Gregor could get out some sort of warning - Jacksonian arrest was not optimal, but it wasn’t a death sentence, and surely not worth risking serious injury - the first goon drew his shockstick and took hold of Gregor’s shoulder, and all hell broke loose.

From Gregor’s limited perspective, limited even further by the bulk of the goon in front of him, he wasn’t able to string much of the next few minutes together, except by later analyzing the results. He thought he heard Miles yell and launch himself at one of the others - at least, he hoped that was the source of the loud THUD, and not the impact of several simultaneous shocksticks - and Malfoy yelled something else behind him, and then abruptly the goon who had grabbed him was thrown to the floor in a flash of red light. Stunned, Gregor thought, though that was like no stunner beam he had ever seen before.

Relieved of the immediate threat, Gregor turned around, looking for the source of the weapon, just in time to see Malfoy shoot two more flashes of red light out of a thin rod in his hand, at each of the other remaining security officers. They crumpled to the ground, the second one unluckily on top of Miles. 

With a brief look at Malfoy, who appeared to be completely unscathed, Gregor rushed forward to pull the muscle-bound body of the goon off his concerningly fragile cousin.

“Are you alright? What on earth were you thinking jumping someone of that size? ...Mister Rotha.” If Miles were traveling undercover as well, he might as well go along with it. Hopefully Miles would pick up the hint and reciprocate.

“I had to do _something_ ,” Miles got out, wincing, as he extricated himself and stood up. He didn’t appear to have broken anything major, at least - though perhaps a rib or two. Thank god and Cordelia Vorkosigan for the Barrayaran availability of synthetics. “I couldn’t let you, of all people, get arrested by Jacksonians. I didn’t expect to win, but I thought you could at least escape in the commotion.”

“Well, thank you, Lord Vorthalia,” Gregor said, with a mixture of fond exasperation and asperity. “But it wasn’t worth risking your ribs over. I could have called the consulate from the detention center. And it’s, er, Greg Bleakman at the moment,” he added in a low voice. “For obvious reasons.”

Miles gave him a deeply suspicious look, but to Gregor’s relief, he declined to comment. “Victor Rotha,” he said instead, with some irony. “Nice to meet you.”

Malfoy, who from the sounds of it had been rustling through the goons’ pockets behind them, appeared behind Gregor’s shoulder.

“Draco Malfoy,” he said, by way of less ironic introduction. “Do you two know each other, then?”

Gregor and Miles looked at each other.

“Yes,” said Gregor, deciding not to elaborate. “I didn’t expect to meet up with him here, though.”

“That’s an understatement,” Miles muttered darkly. “What the hell are _you_ doing here, anyway? And by yourself? Are you alright?” He glared at Malfoy, as though just realizing his potential for security risk.

“We were heading to the Barrayaran consulate, actually,” Gregor said, in Malfoy’s defense. “And we were doing just fine, until we ran into you. What was all that about, anyway?”

“They said someone called Cavilo bid for my arrest,” Miles said. “I don’t even know who that is, other than ‘not Polian Civil Security,’ per these guys.” He nudged one of the goons with his foot. The man didn’t even shift; Malfoy’s odd stunner must be military-grade.

“What, literally bidding?”Malfoy asked, incredulous. “They don’t even have the decency to pretend not to take bribes?”

“Jacksonian law is insane,” said Gregor fervently. “Let’s get them out of sight, though - we’ll start attracting attention.”

“We might be better off just leaving,” said Malfoy. “I didn’t have a chance to Confund any of their surveillance, and their response time seems to be fairly quick, what with all those patrols.”

“We still need to avoid attracting attention, if we’re going to get to the consulate,” said Gregor.

Miles was shooting both of them skeptical looks. “I think that ship has flown, Greg- er,” he said. “Even Jacksonians take issue with people resisting arrest. And they probably have us on the station cams, now. Let’s just - shit!”

Gregor turned toward the mouth of the corridor Miles was staring at. The sounds of heavy feet approaching at speed were unmistakable. 

“Right,” said Malfoy, behind him. “We’re leaving. I’m not doing that again; we’ll be here all day. _Confundus!_ ” 

Gregor looked around, confused, and found Malfoy at his elbow, the slim stunner prototype in his other hand.

“Sorry about this,” Malfoy said, and grabbed his arm - and before Gregor could open his mouth to ask, his whole body seemed to turn inside out, in a sensation not unlike going through a wormhole jump, but somehow accompanied by a loud CRACK. An eternal instant later, he opened his eyes - when he felt, again, that he had eyes -

\- to see the stretch of deserted corridor where he and Malfoy had had their very first conversation. He stared. And then fell over. The feeling of having legs was apparently a bit slower to return.

Malfoy, remarkably, seemed unaffected. “Stay there!” he said. “I’m going back for your friend. Hopefully there’s time.” And with another crack, he disappeared.

Malfoy’s injunction was wholly superfluous. Gregor did contemplate getting up, but after the first effort he thought better of it. He’d never been jumpsick, particularly, but this was somehow much worse. Probably because wormholes were not meant to be opened at arbitrary points inside space stations. What the hell was Malfoy carrying around in his sleeve? A more easily concealable stunner was one thing, but a _wormhole generator_ … 

Before he could give sitting up another try, a third CRACK announced Malfoy’s reappearance, together with Miles. To Gregor’s great annoyance, neither of them even wobbled. Malfoy looked exhausted, however, and after a moment he sat down next to Gregor anyway, leaning his head back against the bulkhead to catch his breath.

Miles, who apparently fed on near-lethal excitement the way sane people fed on peace and quiet and leisurely morning coffee, did not sit. He was practically vibrating. Gregor figured the only reason he hadn’t emerged from the pocket wormhole already talking was that he couldn’t decide what to ask first.

Ultimately, and predictably, he settled on “all of them at once.” 

“What the _hell_ was that?” Miles had at least deigned to put a hand out to the wall to steady himself, but he was still shifting from foot to foot, eyes raking over Malfoy as though he could dissect him with them. “How the hell did you do it? And what was that stunner you were using back there? It wasn’t any model I’ve ever heard of, and I’m pretty familiar with galactic weapons just now. Is it some sort of prototype? Where did you get it? Is it Jacksonian?”

Malfoy looked up at him guardedly. “Don’t worry about it,” he said, in a warning tone. “It works, that’s all you need to know. But I can’t do that particular trick too many times in a row. And it only works for me; all either of you could do with it is poke someone.”

“Could you teach me? If I had the… necessary equipment?”

“No,” Malfoy said, with finality.

“Why not?”

Malfoy sighed irritably. He was clearly torn between being too tired to work out an answer, and too tired to deal with Miles’ endless questions if he refused to do so. 

Gregor felt a pang of sympathy - but not enough to redirect Miles’ attention to himself. He had become reacquainted with his legs during Miles’ interrogation, at least enough to sit up, but his head still felt like it had been stretched into caramel and badly reassembled. Regardless of convenience, he did not think this form of travel would catch on.

“It takes… skills,” Malfoy said finally. “Skills which take a very long time to learn. And which you have to have certain… talents, to be able to learn in the first place.”

“How do you know I don’t have those talents?” Miles was irrepressible.

“You’d already know if you did,” Malfoy said. “They manifest before puberty, if they’re going to.”

“Ah.” Miracle of miracles, this response finally stopped Miles vibrating, and he took his own seat on the floor of the corridor. He had a peculiar expression on his face, however. “So,” he continued, in a bad attempt at nonchalance. “Do these, ah, _talents_ of yours run in the family, then?”

“Oh yes,” said Malfoy. “Eighteen generations pureblood. We’re very proud. For all the good it did anything,” he added in a sullen mutter.

“Fascinating,” breathed Miles, looking slightly green.

“Eternally,” Malfoy agreed sarcastically, getting unsteadily to his feet. “Now, we really need to get elsewhere before they bring out more goons and start a dragnet. We’re far enough away to miss their first pass, but we shouldn’t press our luck. Unfortunately, they’re between us and the consulate. Do we have any alternative destination?”

“Aslund,” Miles said immediately.

Gregor and Malfoy both looked at him, equally baffled.

“Well, the Hub-side Aslund Station, anyway,” Miles conceded, in the face of their expressions. “For, um, reasons.”

Malfoy looked at Gregor, somewhat incredulously.

Gregor fought the temptation to put his face in his hands. He _had_ wanted a galactic adventure, at some point, but not a _Miles-level_ one. At least this time any mercenaries they ended up commanding could be designated a Crown Troop in the first instance, without the treason trial.

“Miles,” he said, somewhat strained. “It is actually fairly important that I connect with Barrayaran consular authorities. At some point. _Soon_.”

“Yes, of course,” Miles said. “But it’s also pretty important that you not end up in Jacksonian custody. Also, we can’t go back to Pol Six, because they’ve got a warrant out for my arrest there as well.”

Gregor closed his eyes. “Fine,” he said. “Aslund Station it is. I’m sure they have some sort of consular presence, even if it’s only an agent on a desk.” He wasn’t going to ask about the warrant; the answer would only make things even worse. 

Malfoy, being unfamiliar with Miles, he did not have Gregor’s discretion. “What are these warrants for, anyway?” he asked, eyebrow raised.

“Um,” Miles said. “Murder. But I didn’t do it!” he hastened to add. “I’m being framed! There was this woman, and, er. Anyway. But she fabricated evidence, and I can’t exactly afford to try to untangle it with the Polian Security Services. Under the circumstances.”

“Is your actual name on this warrant?” Gregor asked drily, his curiosity getting the better of him.

“Well, the warrant’s made out for Victor Rotha - and so is the Jacksonians’, by the way - but they do have me on video. So.”

“Quite.” Gregor was only mildly sorry he’d asked. He’d have to get the full story out of Miles on the trip to Aslund, or at least as much of it as he could share in front of Malfoy, and on a hired shuttle. It would almost certainly be entertaining, if he didn’t have to deal with too many of the consequences.

“Anyway,” he continued, “let’s redirect to the main docks. They’ll have norm-space shuttles available there somewhere. At least my previous piloting experience is good for something. Can you get us there, Malfoy? Discreetly? I know you said no ductwork, but we can’t exactly parade around in broad daylight with a wanted murderer.”

Miles made a face.

“I can,” said Malfoy. “I know where they are. But I’ve got a better idea than ductwork. If you trust me.”

Gregor narrowed his eyes, but nodded. Malfoy had been honest with him so far, to the point of getting involved in a literal shootout on his behalf. He could at least be trusted to make his best efforts to get them all safely off the station.

In response, Malfoy pulled the prototype out of his sleeve and aimed it at Miles, who looked alarmed. “Stay still for a moment. This won’t hurt. _Dissimulo!_ ”

“Eurgh!” said Miles, hunching his shoulders up around his ears. “What the hell did you do? It feels like you cracked an egg on my head.”

“Disguised you,” said Malfoy, tucking his prototype back into his sleeve. “It makes you less noticeable. As long as you don’t draw attention to yourself, anyone looking in your general direction will just… look over you. You’re not invisible, though,” he added sharply. “Not by a long shot. So don’t act like it. But it should keep their security from picking you out from the crowd.”

Gregor looked Miles over. Whatever Malfoy had done to him, the effect was bizarre. It put him a bit in mind of ancient attempts at invisibility tech; lightbending mirrors, and so forth. As advertised, Miles certainly wasn’t invisible, and when Gregor looked straight at him and made an effort to focus, he looked close to normal - but when he looked even slightly away, Miles faded into the bulkhead, as though sinking into a holographic projection. 

“Well,” Gregor said. “Thank you. That will certainly help.” He was both impressed and concerned. Malfoy’s “stunner” was an operative’s wet dream of a multitool - how in the Nexus had he gotten hold of it? Had his "war, of sorts" been some sort of covert corporate espionage struggle? Or perhaps a duel between Jacksonian Houses? After all, he had no way of knowing whether Malfoy was actually from Earth. Perhaps his choice of "Wiltshire" as an origin had been just as truthful as Gregor's choice of "Aslund."

“Sure,” said Malfoy dismissively. “Now, I’m going to go scout out our new route a bit, just to make sure we can get there in one piece. Don’t come with me; I can be more inconspicuous on my own. If I’m not back in five minutes, find somewhere to hide.”

Gregor watched him walk away, frowning slightly, and then turned back to Miles.

Miles had passed from green to pale, even underneath the disguise; he looked like all the ghosts of Vorkosigan Vashnoi had come back to haunt him at once. “ _Gregor_ ,” he hissed. “Gregor, we have to take him with us!”

“I had planned on it,” Gregor said, startled by Miles’ vehemence. “It’s the payment he wanted for guiding me around.”

“Not just to Aslund Station - all the way back to Barrayar! Listen,” Miles whispered, packing a surprising amount of intensity into such a low volume noise. “ _Illyan thinks this Hub commotion is Cetaganda._ ”

“Oh,” said Gregor, stunned. _Oh._ That was horrifying on several levels, not least of which being that it actually made sense. He could think of several ways that instability in the Hub might work against Cetaganda as well, but if armed chaos instead allowed them to gain a foothold within the Hub itself… And if, somewhere on a newly occupied station, they ran across a pale blonde boy with very interesting genetics… He swallowed. The haut were terrifying enough already; the Nexus did not need to see them augmented by any selection of Malfoy’s mysterious “talents.” Cetagandans with spontaneously generating pocket wormholes! It didn’t bear thinking about.

Miles, taking Gregor’s reaction for assent, appeared to rest his case. They lapsed into a mutual silence. 

Despite their previous conversation during Miles’ internal exile in ImpSec HQ, Gregor was curiously reluctant to unburden himself to his cousin any further. On the one hand, he desperately wanted someone to confide in, and he would have few opportunities to match this one - an ImpSec-less corridor and a trusted family member. On the other hand, Miles, despite his residual galactic identities, felt too close to home to share this particular secret with. It wasn’t that he thought Miles would run to Illyan, or even Cordelia; he knew Miles could keep his mouth shut if Gregor asked. But Gregor was still enjoying the dregs of the idea that he might have something separate from the gravity well into which he’d been born, and the more he could keep his wild, galactic adventures to himself, the longer he could extend that fantasy. 

Before he could make up his mind one way or the other, Malfoy returned.

“It’s clear,” he said. “Or close enough, anyway. There’s no security. I think all of them in the area have been recalled to deal with that mess we left, which thankfully is in the opposite direction. Let’s go quickly, before they spread out again.”

They stood, Miles looking incredulously at his own intermittently-disappearing hands, and hurried off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It lives! I would like to promise less than 11 months until Chapter 3, but that is heavily contingent on whatever my brain decides to fixate on in the meantime. But I do already have pieces of it written, and the fic as a whole is certainly not dead! Just, um, not usually on the front burner, as it were.


End file.
